Not Evil, Only Power || A DuckTales Story

Truly a Villain?

Damian was training with the four pesky drones once again. This time they had been rebuilt differently to reassemble themselves after they had been destroyed, giving Damian more of a fight. He got tired after a good fifteen battles, so he switched the training system off. He dropped his wooden staff completely out of exhaustion, and lumbered back to his room. There he grabbed his water bottle and took a few good sips. Suddenly, his mind drifted away from what had happened during training completely; he thought about when he met Gandra, and how she only joined F.O.W.L. because she needed funding for her work.

"Maybe she's not — really evil..." he said to himself.

His mind came to why he joined F.O.W.L.. Mainly, it was because he was born into it.

"But, do I have to be evil because of that?" he asked himself.

Damian put his water bottle down, and stood up out of his desk chair. However, he was still finding his joints to be a little sore, so he simply flopped down onto his bed. Even without resting his head on a pillow, he fell asleep.

A boy of twelve with black hair ran around the lair. He saw the other villains training in physical combat, and was suddenly interested. He ran back to his room and found a wooden staff. He spun in and twirled it, somehow maintaining that for who knows how long.

"Very impressive Damian," came a voice the boy immediately recognized.

His aunt entered the room, and his cheeks flushed pink. He hadn't known how long she'd been there watching him make moves with that staff.

"A-aunt Heron," he stuttered. "I — I uh..."

"Perhaps I should train you in combat," Heron interjected with a grin.

"Really?"

The eager adolescent's eyes lit up at the sound of that. Finally, he was going to be trained to be a villain.

"Will I get to go on a mission too?"

"Not yet," said Heron. "You're still too young for that."

The boy slouched at that. He had always been told he was too young, and was hoping he could be the first kid villain for F.O.W.L..

"Regardless, you're never too young to be physically trained," said the boy's aunt.

"YES!" he cheered.

Heron took the twelve-year-old to the combat training room, with the skinny and rather weak looking robot training dummies. The boy saw a wooden staff at the weapons rack and immediately bolted over there to grab it. He spun it around, battle ready as Heron held the activation switch to start the robots' fighting mechanism.

"Ready," she began. "Steady, begin!"

She pressed the button and the drones came to the boy. He spun his staff and dodged the droids' attacks as best he could. Heron watched from the sidelines.

"That's rather impressive for a boy his age," she mumbled, indeed quite impressed.

The boy swung his staff and it ran right through the drone in front of him, chopping its body completely in half. More robots came his way, and he was ready, spinning his staff, denting the droids, and even crushing others. Soon, every last one of the robots were off their feet, some in one piece, others in multiple. The adolescent dropped the staff he held and collapsed to his knees, absolutely exhausted.

"Well done Damian!" said Heron. "No villain as young as you could ever do that!"

"Thanks Aunt Heron," the boy replied, blushing once again. Then he paused. "Wait, you said 'villain.'"

"Noted," said Heron with a villainous grin.

"You really think I'll be one like you someday?" the boy asked, his eyes twinkling with wonder.

"With your skill and determination, I don't even have a sliver of a doubt," Heron answered.

"WHOOO!" the eager boy cheered.

Damian woke up from the dream, his eyelids slowly lifting. He was still wondering if he was really a villain. Sure, he had wanted to be one when he was younger, but he hadn't known all there was to being a villain back then. Now he knew, as an official villain, with an official villain alias, the Red Raven. But Damian thought he was so much more; he wasn't just some shady villain wearing a mask. However, no one would ever see.

"Do I really want to be the villain?" he asked himself again. "All I want is power, is that evil?"

But he would have to push that out of his mind for now, for a message came through to the whole base interrupting his thoughts.

"Would all agents please report to the conference room," came the deep voice of Director Buzzard.

That particular voice scared Damian. He didn't exactly like Director Buzzard, but he mainly led the charge here, so with that call, he stood up and made his way to the conference room with the others.